Civil War History
Jim Downs, Editor
Crystal Feimster, Associate Editor
Sarah Gardner, Book Review Editor
Preview Upcoming Issue:
“What a Piece of Work Is Man”: Human Dignity in The Killer Angels on Its Fiftieth Anniversary
Christina K. Adkins
“I Shall Forward to You My Contraband”: Tracing Coerced Wartime Black Movement North through an Incomplete Archive
Marcy S. Sacks
In addition to the major articles in each issue, comprehensive book reviews assist the scholar in keeping abreast of current literature in the field.
As the outstanding forum for studies in this pivotal period in American history, Civil War History belongs in every major library collection, including those for students, historians, buffs, and the interested general reader.
Civil War History is especially seeking pioneering scholarship that investigates the cultural, social, and comparative history of the Civil War era. We encourage contributors and readers to contact us directly at civilwarhistoryKENTSTATEUP@gmail.com.
Board of Editors:
Yoni Applebaum, The Atlantic
Maria Carrillo, Lincoln Memorial Shrine
Amanda Claybaugh, Harvard University
Catherine Clinton, University of Texas at San Antonio
Lisa Tendrich Frank, Author and Historian
Barbara Gannon, University of Central Florida
Sarah Lewis, Harvard University
Tamika Nunley, Cornell University
Susan O’Donovan, University of Memphis
Paul Quigley, Virginia Tech
Britt Rusert, University of Massachusetts, Amherst
Gwendolyn DuBois Shaw, University of Pennsylvania
Natasha Trethewey, Northwestern University
Emily West, University of Reading, United Kingdom
Editor
Jim Downs is the Gilder Lehrman-National Endowment for the Humanities Professor of Civil War Era Studies and History. He is the author of Sick From Freedom: African American Sickness and Suffering during the Civil War and Reconstruction (Oxford UP, 2012), Stand By Me: The Forgotten History of Gay Liberation (Basic Books, 2016) and Maladies of Empire: How Colonialism, Slavery, and War Transformed Medicine(Harvard UP, 2021).
Associate Editor
Crystal N. Feimster is associate professor in the Departments of African American Studies and History and the Programs of American Studies and Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Yale University. She is the author of Southern Horrors: Women and the Politics of Rape and Lynching (Harvard, 2009), which won the North East Black Studies Association 2010 W.E.B. Du Bois Book Prize and received Honorable Mention for the Organization of American Historians’ 2010 Darlene Clark Hine Award.
Book Review Editor
Submit TWO books for review to:
Civil War History Book Review Editor
Civil War Institute, Campus Box 435
300 North Washington Street
Gettysburg, PA 17325
Sarah Gardner is Distinguished University Professor of History in Mercer University’s College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. Sarah Gardner is Distinguished University Professor of History in Mercer University’s College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. She is the author of Blood and Irony: Southern White Women’s Narratives of the Civil War, 1861-1937 and Reviewing the South: The Literary Marketplace and the Making of the Southern Renaissance.
Submitting an Article
Send article manuscripts to:
Jim Downs, Editor
Gilder Lehrman–NEH Humanities Professor of Civil War Era Studies and History
Weidensall Hall
Room 202
300 North Washington St.
Gettysburg, PA 17325-1400
CivilWarHistoryKENTSTATEUP@gmail.com
Basic Formatting Guidelines
Most popular word processing programs in either PC or Mac platform may be acceptable, but Microsoft Word is strongly preferred.
- The text should be double-spaced in 12-point type.
- Text pages should be numbered consecutively.
- Include the author’s name only on a separate title page.
- Avoid acknowledgments or citations that might reveal the author’s identity to referees.
- Manuscripts should run between 40 and 60 pages (approximately 10,000 to 15,000 words including notes).
Basic Submission Guidelines
The author’s name should appear ONLY on a separate title page, and nowhere on the article, notes, or abstract because all articles are subject to blind review.
- Send an electronic copy as an email attachment to CivilWarHistoryKENTSTATEUP@gmail.com.
- Please be sure to include:
- a 125-word abstract.
- a short (2-3 pp) updated c.v.
- Information regarding illustrations, photos, tables, or charts. Please note that authors are responsible for supplying print-ready artwork (see “Illustrations” below) and for obtaining written permission and paying related fees for the use of copyrighted material.
Books for Review
Submit TWO books for review to:
Civil War History Book Review Editor
Civil War Institute, Campus Box 435
300 North Washington Street
Gettysburg, PA 17325
The Article Review Process
Civil War History receives more than 100 submissions a year. Of these, 13, or about 1 in 10, will eventually be published in CWH.
Initially, the editors read each submission to verify its suitability for CWH and to identify experts to serve as external referees. Depending on the nature of the particular piece, the editors will seek anywhere from 2 to 3 referees; 2 is the usual number.
The review process is double-blind to ensure author-referee anonymity and may take anywhere from three to six months to complete. Referees are asked to include—and go beyond—a recommendation about publication. Once all referee reports are returned to CWH, the editor, as a general rule, reaches one of four decisions:
- An article may be accepted outright;
- It may be conditionally accepted, pending specific changes;
- It may be returned for revisions with encouragement to resubmit;
- Finally, it may be returned outright.
Revise and resubmit is a typical outcome for a CWH submission. Authors should not interpret this decision as a polite rejection but, rather, as an indication that the referees recognize the manuscript’s promise and that the editor hopes the author will undertake the recommended revisions and resubmit the article to CWH.
The editor expects that manuscripts submitted to CWH are not under consideration by other journals or previously published in whole or substantial part (as a book chapter, for example). Kent State University Press holds the copyright of articles published in Civil War History. CWH authors who wish to reprint their article (in whole or substantial part) will need to obtain the Press’s permission.
Book Reviews
Every quarterly issue of Civil War History features a section devoted to book reviews—approximately 12-15 in each issue. Our reviews are generally 500-750 words in length, although the journal also publishes longer review essays (of 2,500 or more words).
If you are interested in writing book reviews for CWH please contact book review editor by letter. In your letter, identify the fields in which you are qualified to review and include a listing of your significant publications. CWH book reviewers are expected to have a record of significant (refereed) publication in the area in which they review.
If you are interested in submitting a book review, please contact:
Civil War History Book Review Editor
Civil War Institute, Campus Box 435
300 North Washington Street
Gettysburg, PA 17325
Civil War History Style Sheet
Style and Documentation
Follow The Chicago Manual of Style, 17th edition, in matters of style and documentation. Follow Webster’s 11th Collegiate Dictionary for spelling and hyphenation. Use American (first spellings) rather than British rules for spelling.
Insert any diacritical (accent) marks, preferably by using accents on the computer font being used, but as a last resort make an electronic note of the necessary accents, e.g. [Please add accent aigu over the second “e” in this word].
Footnotes should be embedded using the automatic footnote feature in your word processing software. If they cannot be embedded, include notes in a separate section following the article text.
Input & Output: Use one typeface throughout with the minimum of formatting. Except as listed below, avoid all typographic embellishments, including centering, bold face, italics, type ornaments (dingbats), and words typed in all capitals. Use underlining only for text that is to be printed in italics, e.g., the title of a book or journal or the name of a ship. Type one space after periods, one space after colons and semicolons. Never use letters for numbers (e.g., lowercase “ell” for the num one, or the letter “o” for the number zero).
Everything must be double-spaced, including text, extracts within the text, captions, notes, tables, and sources and notes to tables. Allow 1-inch margins at the top, bottom, left, and right. Submit to the editor an electronic copy; keep an identical copy for your records.
Hyphenation & Justification: Turn off the automatic hyphenation feature on your word processing application. Do not type hyphens to break words to the next line. Use a hard return (i.e., starting a new line by using the Enter key) only to begin a new paragraph, never to move to the next line.
Pagination: Number pages consecutively throughout the manuscript in the upper right-hand corner beginning with Arabic 1. Do not use running heads.
Headings: The Kent State University Press discourages the use of subheads and space breaks, preferring a carefully worded transition sentence. Where subheads are necessary, type them in upper and lower case and label in brackets [A head] or [B head] according to their level. Always leave one full line of space above and below all subheads.
Paragraphs and Line Spaces: Begin new paragraphs by typing a hard return. Use a tab for paragraph indents; do not use the space bar. Do not insert extra space between paragraphs. Line spaces or breaks should be avoided.
Extracts: All extracts should be double-spaced. Indent prose extracts from the left margin using the command in your program for changing the left indent. Poetry extracts should follow the original form exactly for indentations and stanza breaks.
Footnotes: All notes must be double-spaced. If using Microsoft Word, use the automatic footnote feature.
Tables: Use tabs, not the space bar, to define columns. Make sure the hard copy and the e-file match. Type all tables double-spaced on pages separate from the text, and number them consecutively. Always make explicit reference to each table within the text and indicate its location in the text on a line, thus: [Table 1 about here]. A horizontal rule should be inserted below the table title, below the column headings, and below the table itself. Do not insert any vertical rules in the tables. Notes and sources should be double-spaced below the final rule. Table notes must be indicated by superscript letters. Save each table as a separate electronic file. (See sample table file here .)
Illustrations: For photographs submit 300 ppi greyscale TIFF files at full size: at least 5 x 7 inches or 1500 pixels x 2100 pixels. For line illustrations submit 1200 ppi bitmapped TIFF files at full size: at least 5 x 7 inches or 6000 pixels x 8400 pixels. Do not embed images in your electronic manuscript file; instead submit them as separate e-files with placement indicated in the text: [Figure 1 here]. Send a hard copy of any illustrations.
Permissions and Fees
Kent State University Press requires a consent-to-publish agreement from authors before articles can be published. Upon acceptance of your article, you will receive a consent-to-publish agreement from the editor. Complete the form, sign, and return it to the Press.
Material quoted or paraphrased from primary and secondary sources and tables and artwork reproduced or adapted from any source may require permission for use. Authors are responsible for obtaining written permission and paying related fees for the use of such material. The editorial process cannot begin until the editor has received copies of all necessary releases.
Please note that authors are responsible for paying reproduction fees and obtaining permission to use copyrighted materials; however, the editor will gladly write supporting letters to the holders of copyrights for authors seeking remission of fees.
Civil War History Book Review Editor
Civil War Institute, Campus Box 435
300 North Washington Street
Gettysburg, PA 17325
Permissions Department
Kent State University Press
1118 Library
PO Box 5190
Kent, OH 44242-0001
Permission requests may also be made via email to journals@kent.edu.
Include the following information:
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Civil War History Information
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Permission will be granted for only one version of your publication in the English language. Any other use requires additional permission. Permission does not include electronic or other rights unless specifically stated.
Policy on Self-Archiving and Institutional Repositories
KSU Press allows authors of articles published in its journals to post pre-print and post-print versions of their articles on their personal websites and within institutional repositories.
A pre-print is the un-refereed version of an article. We ask authors to acknowledge its future publication and identify the journal, the year of publication, and the publisher. Please indicate that the article is a “working paper.”
A post-print is the final published version of the article. Twelve (12) months after publication, authors may mount post-prints of their articles on their own web sites and/or institutional repositories on not-for-profit servers. Authors may not use the publisher-generated PDF.
For post-prints, please include the following credit line: This article was published as [complete bibliographic citation as it appears in the print journal]. No part of this article may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, transmitted, or distributed, in any form, by any means, electronic, mechanical, photographic, or otherwise, without the prior permission of Kent State University Press. For educational re-use, please contact the Copyright Clearance Center (508-744-3350). For all other permissions, please contact journals@kent.edu (330-672-7913).
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Ad Reservation Due Dates:
March issue: November 7
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March issue: December 7
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December issue: September 7
Order and Inquiries:
Journals Department
The Kent State University Press
P.O. Box 5190
Kent, Ohio 44242-0001
Phone: 330-672-7913 or 330-672-8092
E-mail: cbrooks@kent.edu
Watch an interview with former CWH Book Review Editor Brian Craig Miller.
Hear an interview with former CWH Editor Lesley Gordon regarding new data on the Civil War dead.